On Rainy Days, Go Filipino With Your Comfort Food

Any rainy day is more than just a “sweater weather” or “cuddle weather” day; it is also the perfect weather for food.

There’s something about the rain that makes eating your favorite meals a more delicious experience. Think about it: you’re snuggled up in your favorite blanket, watching your favorite show and you’re eating something warm and delicious.

The typical staple for the rainy weather, however, can be boring. If you want something new for your rainy weather gorging, go international with your meals — make it a Filipino Barrio Fiesta, to be exact.

In the Philippines, rainy day comfort food isn’t your typical chicken noodle or mushroom soup. The country’s selection of soups — both savory and sweet — will not just warm you up; it’ll delight your taste buds, too.

So, if you live nearby a local Filipino restaurant or have the ingredients in your pantry, try the following rainy day delicacies from the Philippines.

Hot Pandesal and Coffee

Filipinos like to start their days eating bread and coffee. The local and classic pandesal is a staple in every native’s breakfast table. Similar to the traditional rolls, these breadcrumb-dusted rolls of bread are best served warm and dipped in coffee (or hot chocolate, if you’re not a big fan of coffee).

Eating hot pandesal and coffee is perfect for sitting by the window while you watch the rainfall and stain your windows.

Lapaz Batchoy

This popular noodle dish, which originated in La Paz, Iloilo, is composed of the following ingredients (which are mostly from pork):

• Liver
• Kidneys
• Pork offal like spleen

The hot broth is often served in a deep bowl. It is always garnished with pork cracklings, raw egg, spring onions and plenty of garlic.

If you want to go for a more traditional approach, the regular batchoy is just as delicious. Apart from the pig’s innards, this dish has miki noodles and sliced pork. Unlike La Paz batchoy, the traditional batchoy recipe uses shrimp paste, which is often sold in small blocks.

Bulalo

There is something comforting about slurping soup while it rains outside. The experience is made more enjoyable when the soup-sipping involves sipping the bone marrow, too.

If you want a beefy adventure, bulalo is perfect for you. This dish is made from a tender beef shank with the marrow still inside the bone.

Apart from the piping hot beef shanks, the stew is made from:

• Potatoes
• Peppercorns
• Corn on the cob
• Bokchoy

Lugaw

This is the Philippines’ take on the Chinese congee. It’s the same boiled rice porridge but thicker and of a different color (the Chinese congee is often white while lugaw is yellow). Most of the time, lugaw is cooked in:

• Fresh strips of ginger
• Beef or chicken stock

The soup dish is always topped with scallions and made more delicious with crispy fried garlic. If you want to level up your lugaw, you can cook arroz caldo. Level up your plain rice soup by adding chicken. Another leveled-up version of the lugaw is the goto, which uses internal organs and beef.

Sopas

Yet another soup dish on this entry, sopas is a creamy soup made more delicious with elbow macaroni, chicken bits, shredded vegetables and milk. In some cases, people add cheese and sausage to make the soup dish more flavorful. This hearty soup does more than keep you warm during a cold day. It can also offer relief for common colds, fever and cough.

Lomi

Thick and hearty, this noodle dish is loaded with plenty of toppings to keep you going. The dish is made from thick lomi noodles cooked in stock together with:

• Beaten eggs
• Vegetables
• Meatballs
• Shrimp
• Cornstarch to thicken the soup

If you’re feeling extra with your lomi, you can throw in some squid balls, liver and spring rolls! The best thing about lomi is it’s very easy to make, like the rest of the dishes listed above.

Sinigang

Sinigang is the ultimate Filipino comfort food that is perfect for rainy days. This sour soup dish can be served either with shrimp, fish, beef or pork. It also contains a variety of vegetables like string beans, taro and okra. Its trademark sour taste is from the calamansi, mango or tamarind added to the dish. This hearty soup is best paired with rice.

Champorado

Finally, capping off the list is this sweet cocoa-flavored porridge that is often topped with powdered or evaporated milk. This sweet chocolate porridge uses cocoa powder and sweet glutinous rice.

So if you’re looking for something warm for the rainy days, go Filipino with your comfort food.